


Til My Dying Day

by meils121



Category: Leverage
Genre: Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meils121/pseuds/meils121
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years he lets himself get swept up in a world more violent than war had ever been.  He isn’t a good guy anymore.  He doesn’t really care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Til My Dying Day

            The first time Eliot really has to think about death, he’s sixteen and his mama is dying.  He’d do anything he could to save her, but instead he finds out that there are some battles you can’t fight for other people, no matter how hard you try.  He holds his mama’s hand while she lies in that hospital bed, and with tears falling down his cheeks, he promises her he’ll watch out for his baby sister.  The day of her funeral there are grey skies and an icy wind and all Eliot can think is that it feels like someone came along and cut out most of his heart.  He’s never felt so empty. 

            He joins the Army because he wants to do something good.  They call it a peacekeeping mission and for a while Eliot thinks his life is okay.  It doesn’t last.  It’s a lesson that Eliot figures he’s going to keep learning, over and over – that nothing lasts.  He stops believing in God the day they get ambushed and AJ gets shot.  Eliot prays and prays, as much as he prayed for his mama, and promises he’ll do anything if only his buddy makes it.  But AJ dies and Eliot learns God isn’t looking out for him.  Hell, Eliot starts thinking that God has never been looking out for him. 

            Eliot lands in the hospital because of that attack, and that’s when he finds out that it’s not just grief that death brings.  AJ’s screams haunt him every waking moment, and when he closes his eyes all he can see is the blood and the way his buddy’s eyes can’t focus anymore.

            It’s after his leg heals and all that are left are the psychological damages that Eliot realizes he cheated death.  He doesn’t know whether he’s lucky or cursed, but in the end his own feelings don’t matter.  His superiors talk to him about how he showed strategic thinking and kept a clear head, and Eliot doesn’t entirely remember the time it took to go from being just a soldier to being Special Forces.  He’s cheating death all the time now.  If he is lucky, then his luck is bound to run out soon.  He doesn’t know if being cursed would be better or worse, not until he sends yet another buddy home in a body bag and realizes that he can’t take this anymore.  He’s let death control him too long.  Now, Eliot thinks, he’s going to control death.

            Eliot doesn’t realize until he’s out that it’s been years since he wasn’t a soldier.  The world isn’t set up for a person like him.  The girls he finds himself waking up next to aren’t prepared for the nightmares.  So Eliot finds a world that is right for someone like him.  At first he can pretend he is still on the good side of things.  But somehow the small jobs turned into working as a gun for hire, and there are some lines that become walls once you step over them.  For years he lets himself get swept up in a world more violent than war had ever been.  He isn’t a good guy anymore.  He doesn’t really care.

            “That’s what I like about you, Spencer.  You’re heartless.  It’s all about the job for you.”  One of the men he works for says.  Eliot doesn’t agree with him until a few weeks later, when that same man is dead and he has a pile of cash to show for it.  It is all about the job for him. 

            He stops feeling.  For so long there has been so much pain and guilt, and then he just stops feeling it.  He stops wondering what his mama would think of him.  He doesn’t worry anymore about how long it’s been since he’s seen his family.  It’s just him.  It’s lonely, but for a very long time Eliot convinces himself it’s better to be lonely than to feel.

            Things change and Eliot grows older and sees more than one person should ever see in their lifetime.  He knows how he’s going to die.  It’s going to be ugly and brutal, but he’s pretty sure it’ll be fast.  That’s how most guys of his line of work went.  He made his peace with it a long time back.  Recently, he’s started thinking, maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad.  There are other guys just like him who would take his place, and no one will even notice he’s gone.  He’s replaceable.  Dying sooner rather than later just means fewer days of not feeling anything.  Eliot is pretty sure he isn’t even human anymore.

            The day Eliot meets Toby, he realizes he’s been lying to himself for years.  He’s never had a chance at controlling death.  Death always wins.  Every moment he spends with Toby, he thinks of how much trouble he’s getting himself into.  He’s going to end up in an alleyway a few blocks from here with a hole between his eyes.  And he doesn’t care.  If this is the end, it’s a damn good way to end a life as messed up as his.  Only Toby gives him another option, one he doesn’t know is even possible.  He can walk away. 

            Learning to cooks gives Eliot something he hasn’t had in a long time, maybe not since his mama died: hope.  Except Eliot knows too well that hope is about as strong as a blade of grass.  He’s right, too.  His life catches up to him.  Only this time, Eliot isn’t so broken.  Cooking has taught him to feel again.  He figures, if he is destined to live and die this way, he is going to be the best there is.  He teaches himself how to survive in a world where death is the more likely result.  He becomes a legend, and some nights Eliot is proud, actually proud, of what he has become.  He’s still going to die some day soon, but he isn’t going to be replaceable.  He’s not going to let death take that away from him. 

            Eliot doesn’t think about his time with Moreau.  It’s easier not to.  He keeps telling himself he’ll only work for the man until he’s saved up enough money to retire, but somehow that’s never happened.  There are days he thinks maybe he should just kill himself, stop all the pain he was inflicting on people, since it turns out his ability to cheat death is definitely a curse.  He almost does kill himself, a couple of time.  But dying seems almost as pointless as living.  That’s when Eliot decides maybe being the best at what he does isn’t a good thing.  He stops taking those sorts of jobs, goes back to the retrieval and security work.  You aren’t supposed to be able to walk away from Moreau, but Eliot isn’t the sort of man that even Moreau would mess with that easily.  He lets Eliot leave, and hell, why wouldn’t he?  Eliot will never tell anyone what he did for that man.

            Working retrieval isn’t all that bad.  He has buddies again, something he never thought would happen.  A couple of old Army friends hook him up with jobs.  He has a life again, and even though he still isn’t on the right side of the law, it sure as hell feels like his is after what he has spent the last few years doing.  Eliot knows he’ll still die doing this job, but that day starts feeling a bit further away. 

            Eliot knows better than to let anyone get close too him.  He’s shed enough tears over people he was close to.  He doesn’t want to do that anymore.  So he holds people at arm’s length.  He builds up walls around himself and doesn’t let anyone try to scale them.  It works, until the day he stands on a rooftop with an obnoxious kid and a crazy blonde.  He recognizes a kindred spirit in her, someone else who had learned a long time ago that it’s easier to shut people out than let them in.

            “How do you do it?”  Eliot asks Nate one day.  They’ve been a team for a while now.  “How do you still care?”

            Nate takes a sip of whatever he’s drinking and shakes his head.  “It’s not a choice.”  He says.  “There are people who need my help.”

            Eliot doesn’t think Nate is telling him the truth until that night.  His nightmares are the worse they’ve been in a couple of years.  He wakes up with his heart pounding and the sweat making his hair stick to his forehead.  He realizes he does care – has cared.  He’s just been shoving it down all these years.  He wants to blame Nate for bringing it back to the surface but a tiny part of him remembers what it was like before the nightmares.  Eliot knows he can’t ever ask to be forgiven for the lives he’s taken, but this job makes him think that maybe he can learn to do more than just feel.  Maybe he can learn how to care.

            It starts with the team.  More accurately, it starts with Parker.  Maybe it’s because she reminds him of his baby sister, or maybe it’s because she just accepts him for who he is.  He knows the others are cautious of him, and he knows they have every right to be.  It still hurts.  His job is to protect them.  Eliot always does his job, and he wishes there was a way he could explain to the others than he can’t ever betray them, not after what they’ve done together.  But Parker inserts herself into his life in such a way that Eliot doesn’t even notice until he wakes up one morning and finds her eating cereal at his kitchen table because she’s lonely. 

            With Nate, it’s different.  Eliot knows that deep down Nate trusts him from the start.  It’s Nate’s own problems coming to terms with the idea he’s part of a group of thieves that’s the real problem.  Hardison takes awhile.  Eliot knows Hardison has read every file he can find about his past, and he doesn’t blame Hardison for wanting that knowledge.  He’s just scared what Hardison will do with it.  It’s in the middle of an argument when Hardison grabs something out of Eliot’s hand and hits him over the head with it that Eliot realizes Hardison trusts him.  Hardison knows Eliot isn’t going to use his skills against him, just like Eliot knows Hardison will never tell anyone anything about Eliot’s past that he doesn’t want getting out. 

            It’s the hardest with Sophie.  Eliot knows she sees herself as the mother of their little team, and Parker and Hardison are fine with it because they don’t have a mother to replace.  But Eliot’s already let his mama down so much that he can’t do it again.  Then one day he realizes that Sophie is just trying to be a mother, not his mother.  It’s different, and some tiny part of Eliot tells him that his mama would be happy that someone was looking out for her baby. 

            It’s only a matter of time after Eliot learns to care about the team that it extends to others.  There are certain parts of him that he’s pushed down for so long that are bubbling back up to the surface now.  It starts with the kids they help.  Eliot can’t stand the idea that anyone would hurt a kid, and he makes a promise to himself that he’ll never again do nothing.  There comes a day when he realizes Nate was right all along – caring isn’t a choice.  He has to help people. 

            There’s still death in this job.  Seeing Moreau again brings back memories of a time that Eliot has tried to forget ever happened.  The worse is the day he confronts Nate about Dubenich.  He wants so badly for Nate to listen to him, to understand that death will destroy him.  Eliot remembers that innocent life he took and begs Nate not to fire that gun.  Eliot’s learned a hard lesson, and he doesn’t want his team to have to learn it for themselves.  He wants to be a warning for them.  It doesn’t matter who it happens to – death will always screw you over. 

            The day he promises Sophie that he’ll always watch over Parker and Hardison, he realizes he’s learned more than just how to care.  He’s learned how to love again.  He’s got a family, has had one for a while, and he’s the happiest he’s been in a long time.  “’Till my dying day.”  He tells Sophie, and he means it.  This is the first time he thinks that maybe his ability to cheat death was a blessing after all. 


End file.
